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Author: rafferty

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The Dumbing Down of the Financial Services Industry’s Future

16:15 14 September in Articles Written by Jon Henschen by rafferty

September 11, 2015 By Jon Henschen, as published on ThinkAdvisor   To listen to the Department of Education and the laments of public school system officials you may be left with the impression that our schools are impoverished and can only survive by cutting arts and sports programs in order to stay within budget. Statistics point out a different reality: while we now spend private-school amounts on public school students, performance results are getting worse, not better. As I’ll argue later on, this decreasing performance has big implications for our industry. For now, let’s start by addressing the overall performance issue using the chart below: Spending More and Getting Less Since 1970, K-12 spending has gone up astronomically (from approximately $55,000 per student to $165,000) while test scores have remained flat or gone down.The author of the Cato...

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5 New Compliance Headaches for Advisors, BDs

16:37 04 September in In the News by rafferty

September 3, 2015 By Melanie Waddell, ThinkAdvisor   As Labor Day approaches, here are five big compliance developments advisors may have missed over the summer Pressures on compliance professionals at advisory firms and broker-dealers continue to mount as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Obama administration, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Department of Labor are gearing up to usher in new requirements. While compliance is increasingly becoming a core function at advisory firms and broker-dealers, with firms hiring more personnel to help in this area, a recent Cipperman Compliance survey found that firms still aren’t devoting enough manpower or funds to their compliance programs. A recent poll conducted by the Investment Adviser Association found that firms continue to try and keep up with ongoing compliance challenges such as cybersecurity, custody of client assets, advertising/marketing, fraud prevention...

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Voya takes on bigger rivals with new RIA channel

23:29 03 September in In the News by rafferty

September 3, 2015 By Mason Braswell, Investment News   New platform will let the firm offer affiliation options like those at larger broker-dealers such as LPL and Raymond James Voya Financial Inc. is casting its lot with a number of other large broker-dealers looking to capitalize on the rapid growth in fee-based business by opening a new channel aimed at advisers with their own registered investment adviser. The hybrid RIA platform, which will be open to advisers with $100 million or more in assets under management, will allow investment advisers to use Voya's platform and broker-dealer for commission-based business while operating under their own brand and filing their own ADV form, according to Andre Robinson, head of advisory services at Voya. Previously, investment advisers had to register under the Voya corporate RIA. “When we started to...